Page 22 of The Castle (Endgame 3)
I turn back to Gabriel, nonplussed to find myself alone with him.
His lips have kissed so many places on my body. Those large hands have touched me everywhere, but I’ve never really examined him. He’s never let me. The realization hits me with a dark sense of betrayal. He exposed his secrets to me, portioning them out like bread crumbs. But when it came to sex, he held me down, he turned me around. He subsumed me in pleasure, rendering me boneless and satiated.
I climb onto his body, my knees split over his hips.
Guilt twinges inside me. He would never let me do this if he were awake. He would be hard and thrusting, his hands wrapped around my waist, flipping me over. Instead I rest my palms over the flat of his stomach, positioning myself where I can study him.
A lock of mahogany-brown hair falls onto his forehead.
Lashes rest against his cheek.
Gabriel’s eyes have an intensity that always captivates me. So it’s a novel experience to look at him with his eyes closed, like reclaiming my power. I know he’d hate to be vulnerable like this, unable to protect me, unable to shield himself from my curiosity.
I touch my forefinger to the taut skin of his stomach. His muscles ripple beneath my touch, hyperaware even when he’s asleep. The skin is smoother than I expect, smoother than it feels when he pounds into me, his body hard around me. I trail my finger along the valley of his abs to his broad chest.
Higher, higher. To the rough bristle over his chin, to the soft pad of his bottom lip.
My gaze lifts to find his eyes slitted open.
“How do you feel?” I whisper.
“Like flipping you over,” he says, his voice like gravel.
“You’re in no shape to do that,” I say, alarmed. It would be just like him to do it anyway. Even though he doesn’t look capable of it. Even though he’d probably rip his stitches out even trying.
“Don’t look like her,” he mumbles.
Surprise clenches my stomach. Everyone knows I look like my mother. So much that no one noticed that her portrait had been swapped out for a new painting of me, an elaborate and quietly terrifying threat. Jonathan Scott succeeded in breaking my mother, but it seems like he won’t be content until he has me too.
“A little different,” I answer, uncertain.
There are slight differences to our appearance, besides the different clothes she would wear. Her nose was a little stronger, more aristocratic, her overall face thinner and more defined. Her hair was a pale blonde, like spun gold, instead of the dirty blonde I have.
“Hannah.”
My heart thuds. “Who?”
“So pretty.”
A hot burn streaks through me, sudden and strange enough that it takes me a moment to catch my breath. Jealousy. Which is pretty messed up, considering Hannah’s probably the name of the poor dead girl, the one he didn’t manage to save.
He’s delirious from drugs. That’s why he’s spilling secrets he never would before. If it was wrong for me to look at him while drugged, it’s even worse for me to question him.
“Hannah’s the girl from the brothel?”
His eyes are glazed, in another time and place. “You can’t have her.”
Suddenly I realize how little I know about him. Before it had seemed like enough, to know that he cared about me, that I trusted him. I didn’t know all his secrets, but it was almost a game to uncover them.
This doesn’t feel like a game. There’s something in the air—desperation, yearning.
God, did he love her? That makes her fate even more horrifying.
I stand back up, taking a few steps away. A few feet to breathe.
Anders returns to the room with a fresh pair of gloves and a crisp white bandage. He applies it with surprising care, using medical tape to secure it. “With any luck he’ll actually let them heal.”
“I’ll make him rest,” I say, but even I don’t believe I have that power.
“He’ll be out for a few hours. I’ll take you to a bedroom upstairs.”
I shake my head. “I’m staying with him.”
Anders looks at me with begrudging respect. “You’re less of a spoiled little princess than I thought.”
My eyes narrow. “You’re just as much of an asshole as I thought.”
He laughs, folding the rest of the bandages over, turning away to leave.
“Wait,” I say, unease churning in my stomach. “Will you answer something for me?”
“Depends on what it is.”
“Who’s Hannah?”
Confusion crosses his expression, and it appears to be genuine. I’m not sure why he would pretend with me anyway. He glances at Gabriel, his eyes hard. “If you’re asking about an ex, he’s never been with anyone. Not seriously and not for more than a few nights.”
“Okay.” I’m convinced it was the girl he protected at the brothel.
Then why did I hear such longing in his voice?
